Category Archives: Op-eds

Lloyd Harris

BBC witch hunt

By Lloyd Harris | Thu 6th February 2020 - 5:33 pm

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I am not keen to join in the witch trial of the BBC, which is more about giving Conservative politicians less scrutiny and destroying competition for organisations that only want to get rid of the BBC, so they can rake in more money for their shareholders.

It isn’t possible to go to jail for paying the licence fee; that is a myth, you get a fine only. However if Council Tax, which is actually quite a similar charge, is a civil offence then the licence fee should follow, but that would also result in a fine. The only difference is the lack of a criminal record.

The licence fee rate was set by the Conservative Government when it wrote the BBC’s Charter in 2016, so the BBC can’t charge what it likes. Unfortunately there is no provision to vary the charge for ability to pay or a person’s wealth. Next opportunity to amend this is the charter renewal in 2027.

Most countries have a state broadcaster. Do we want to go down the road of Russia and have it state funded via taxation but controlled by the Government?

Do we want it to be an independent commercial company left at the mercy of market forces and see it ditch its unprofitable parts to avoid going bust?

Do we wanted it to be funded by its users and therefore free of Government but answerable to the audience? I prefer this but with more freedom to raise money from other sources (currently something like 25% commercial/other income and 75% licence fee), so the licence fee rate falls instead of rises.

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A new Social Contract – putting flesh on the bones

By Michael Berwick-Gooding and Katharine Pindar | Thu 6th February 2020 - 1:53 pm

Nearly 80 years ago the Beveridge report, ‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’ was published. Last year Philip Alston concluded, ‘Key elements of the post-war “Beveridge social contract” are being overturned’. Beveridge wanted to fight five giant evils – Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. We need to modernise the language and fight poverty, poor health, lack of skills and training, homelessness and unemployment.

Just as the Labour government of 1945-51 rejected the idea of the deserving and undeserving poor with the passing of the National Assistance Act of 1948, so must the Liberal Democrats. We have taken the first step. Federal Conference Committee accepted as a drafting amendment to the Fairer Shares for All policy passed at Bournemouth last September our suggestion that we reaffirm our policy to “Scrap the sanctions regime and replace with a system of incentives”. We believe that people needing assistance must be treated with respect, and the attitude of respect must begin at the top, in government, as has not been the case under the recent Tory governments. Most people do not wish to be in receipt of benefits, nor to seem to be asking for help by going to the food banks.

The first requirement of government in a new Social Contract should be to ensure that no one in the UK lives in poverty. They must also ensure that everyone has access to the health care they need in a timely manner; everyone has access to the education and training they require throughout their working life to ensure they fulfil their full potential; that everyone who wants a home of their own has one; and that everyone who wants a job has one.

The only legal requirement for the people in a new Social Contract is to keep the laws of the UK. The social element desired is that people show respect to everyone and their rights.

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John Barrett

How to fund the BBC?

By John Barrett | Wed 5th February 2020 - 6:35 pm

At a time when fewer young people watch live TV or any TV at all, and older people are concerned about the future of their free licences, it is now time to rethink, seriously, how the BBC is funded.

For people, like me, who also subscribe to a news package and can compare BBC News with a range of alternative, I now rarely, if ever, watch BBC News. Those who say the BBC News is the best in the world have probably not watched the alternatives available.

Much of my other TV entertainment is through subscriptions to Netflix and Prime, and while I can afford to pay for the licence, if I could not, I would understand more those struggling to pay it and campaigning to get rid of a tax on something they do not want, or use.

We all indeed pay lots of taxes for things we do not use but accept they are worth it.

The NHS is a good example, for many healthy people, and while those with no children, or children in private education, might object to paying for schools, most would accept that schools are necessary, as is the NHS. The BBC does not fall into that same category of being an essential service – anymore.

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David Warren

Crosland The Social Democrat

By David Warren | Wed 5th February 2020 - 3:30 pm

I first became aware of Tony Crosland in 1980 when I watched a TV documentary covering that year’s election for the Labour Party leadership in which Michael Foot narrowly defeated Denis Healey. The programme profiled a Labour MP whom it said had voted for Crosland in the previous contest four years earlier. I later discovered that he came last in that poll garnering only seventeen votes from his fellow parliamentarians, I wrongly concluded from that mere statistic that Mr Crosland wasn’t much of a figure in the Labour Party. How wrong I was.

In fact, from his entry into politics as a young man in the 1940s to his untimely death in 1977 Crosland was a key figure on the progressive centre-left. First becoming an MP in 1950, he went to serve as a minister under both Wilson and Callaghan in a variety of departments ending as Foreign Secretary. His passing resulted in the fast track promotion of one David Owen to that role which some might argue made Owen such a key player subsequently.

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Duncan Brack

Review of Federal committee elections

By Duncan Brack | Wed 5th February 2020 - 12:00 pm

‘Review of federal committee elections’ is probably not a title guaranteed to quicken readers’ pulses – but it’s important to the functioning of our party’s democracy, so please read on!

Last year’s elections to the federal party’s committees – the Federal Board, Policy Committee, Conference Committee, International Relations Committee and ALDE council – broke new ground, especially in the efforts to engage as many party members as possible, and also through the management of the process online. It was also a substantial achievement to run it during what turned out to be a general election period, in October and November.

There were, however, also some serious difficulties, including the publishing of some candidates’ manifestos and not others, requiring the election to be paused and some voters to re-cast their votes, and other information required not being provided at all.

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Thomas Hague

Journalistic Silencing

By Thomas Hague | Wed 5th February 2020 - 8:55 am

In the last few days, we have seen reports of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson’s Downing Street attempting to exclude some journalists from press reports.

This is utterly disgusting behaviour by Her Majesty’s Government, and I am proud to hear that the remaining journalists refused to play along and also walked out.

However, the thought then dawned on me, what if this is what Cummings wants? Think about it. Downing Street wins either way.

Only two outcomes would’ve come out of this move

  1. The chosen outlets, those likely to spin Johnson in a favourable light (I.e. the Telegraph, Daily Mail, etc.) continue to

…

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John Hann

The Conservatives’ honeymoon period will be short

By John Hann | Tue 4th February 2020 - 12:35 pm

As Ed Davey has said in a speech reported on this website, “if Brexit has taught us anything, it is that there are many serious divisions to fix. The UK is divided by inequality”.

And he added that those who voted for Brexit did so “because your communities have been let down for decades. Because Governments have ignored you”.

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Luke Binney

Brexit, our Party`s Future and CANZUK (Canada, New Zealand, Australia and UK)

By Luke Binney | Tue 4th February 2020 - 11:05 am

CANZUK and dependencies

On Friday the UK left the European Union and has now entered a transitional period, intended to develop a trade agreement with the EU and other areas in the world. I feel, therefore, that it is important to discuss what our party should be doing moving forward, and can see that there will be a good deal of debate over this and the options, most likely: rejoin as soon as possible, rejoin after a time or other alternatives. Here, I shall make the argument for the latter case and chiefly examine what I believe to be our next best option, a CANZUK (Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK) Agreement.

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Rob Blackie

Liberal Democrats should campaign to fix Brexit

By Rob Blackie | Tue 4th February 2020 - 9:35 am

What should Lib Dems do now?

Should we just be campaign to rejoin the EU? Or something else?

I suggest that we fix Brexit first.

Last year people voted Conservative because they thought Brexit was a distraction from Britain’s real problems. Over 70% of the public thought this. Most people who voted Remain thought this. They thought that the only way to get Brexit out of the way, was to push it through.

Of course this isn’t true. Brexit isn’t over. And we’ll be stuck with the problems it creates for decades.

But if we campaign to rejoin straight away, it will be counter-productive. People won’t see the problems caused by Brexit, because most of them won’t be obvious until the transition period ends.

And, just as everybody sighs in relief that Brexit is over, we’ll look like obsessives wanting to restart the argument. A bit like John Redwood in the 1990s.

The British people have given the government a chance to get Brexit right.

Lib Dems should therefore work to fix Brexit. Fixing Brexit means accepting it’s happening. For now.

That means minimising the damage. Damage done to the economy. And damage done to our friends and neighbours.

Today there are three things we can campaign on.

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Alisha Lewis

Lib Dem councillors – the thin orange line between Britain and the harsh effects of Brexit

By Alisha Lewis | Mon 3rd February 2020 - 9:40 am

We fought hard, we won where we could, but lost where it mattered. Brexit is on the doorstep.

And that’s where we should be too.

A wise man once addressed the European Parliament in the wake of our most successful European elections ever and told us that Brexit is not inevitable. And while that may not be as true as it once was, the most devastating consequences of Brexit for our communities are not as inevitable as they may feel sitting here in the crushing aftermath of a truly momentous step back for Britain.

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John Barrett

Is it time to ditch referendums?

By John Barrett | Sun 2nd February 2020 - 10:40 am

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Is it now time to accept that referendums are no way to decide anything? Or is it time to say that they should only be used, if the result produces a clear majority, of say two thirds of the voters, or 50% of the entire electorate?

The decision to use a referendum to decide major constitutional issues has always appeared, in the past, to be the sensible way to tackle those issues, as people vote at General Elections on a wide range of issues and it was thought that a referendum would give a clear answer on a single issue.

The UK remaining in the EU, or Scotland leaving the UK have both been put to a referendum where the side getting 50% of the vote could claim victory, but it was clear in both cases that people would vote each way for a variety of reasons on both issues, leaving the question, “What is the point of a referendum if it doesn’t clearly answer the question put?”

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Giles Goodall

A day of ignominy

By Giles Goodall | Fri 31st January 2020 - 6:02 pm

Today will go down in history. Not as a day of progress, joy, or unity, but as a day of ignominy.

It is the culmination of state failure on a massive scale, exposing the gaping holes and inadequacies in Britain’s shoddy political system and constitution, our dishonourable media, and our flawed political class.

Put together, the combined errors of decades have culminated in three full years of tragedy and farce. They have also seen the birth of the EU’s largest pro-European movement, with great passion, courage, and vigour – but it all came too late.

The world looks on, scratching its head in bemusement, at how such an apparently accomplished nation can conduct such an evident act of self-harm, simultaneously undermining the world order it helped establish and subverting its own foreign policy goals of centuries.

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Caron Lindsay

This is a shameful day in our country’s history

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 31st January 2020 - 1:45 pm

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Today is a horrible day and I feel overwhelmingly sad about the opportunities we are losing. We won’t notice an immediate difference because of the transition period but there is no longer anything we can do if we don’t like the changes that happen at the end of this year. We will no longer have the EU to protect our workers’ rights from the worst excesses of our government. We won’t have as easy access to the single market, so our prices will go up. The next generation’s chances to live, work and study in the EU will be severely limited and those EU citizens already here – our friends, family and neighbours face the Home Office hostile environment. Settled status doesn’t offer that much protection.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Blame Newt

By Tom Arms | Fri 31st January 2020 - 12:15 pm

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The blame for today’s polarised world is most often laid at the door of President Trump. He is credited with climbing to power on the back of colourfully-worded hate politics and of providing the inspiration for Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummins, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland.

But who inspired Trump? The answer is the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich was—still is—a staunchly conservative Republican from the deep south state of Georgia who entered the political arena in the 1970s when southern Democrats were shifting to the liberal left in a vain effort to retain power in the South in the aftermath of the civil rights campaign. Gingrich believed that the answer to the loss to the conservatives was to replace it with a radicalised and more conservative Republican Party.

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John McHugo

The response to Trump’s peace plan should be – recognise Palestine now

By John McHugo | Thu 30th January 2020 - 7:36 pm

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As we leave the EU, we need to show that we are not Trump’s poodle. Britain must therefore publicly be seen to reject the wholesale attack on the rule of international law that is unfortunately an important element in Trump’s so-called “deal of the century”, his plan for peace between Israel and Palestine.

Although the “deal” contains positive elements, such as aspects of its vision for cooperation in economic development, nothing can hide the fact that it contains a diktat to be imposed on the Palestinians that deprives them of their right of self-determination (whilst brazenly maintaining that the contrary is true), as well as the territorial integrity of the Palestinian land that Israel occupied in 1967.

The “deal” has understandably already been described as creating “disconnected Bantustans” rather than a Palestinian State. If it is successfully implemented in the form in which it is published, it is likely to mean the end of the two State solution and become the focal point for a struggle for equal rights for Arab and Jew between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. It also has the regrettable appearance of trying “to buy” the Palestinians so as to induce them not to insist on their rights. That is creating anger far beyond Palestine.

The plan claims to recognise the realities on the ground. This assertion must be called out.

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Shas Sheehan

A private member’s bill to keep fossil fuels in the ground – where they belong

By Shas Sheehan | Thu 30th January 2020 - 4:19 pm

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Last year Theresa May’s government declared a climate emergency and put into law the aim to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.

But here’s the rub. The UK government’s current primary objective for offshore oil and gas is to enable as much as possible to be extracted. This is written into the Petroleum Act 1998.

To many people it is a matter of common sense that opening up new oil and gas fields – and building new fossil fuel infrastructure – is incompatible with acting to tackle the climate emergency and meeting the net-zero target by 2050. It is also incompatible with our commitments to the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The bald truth is that even if current developed reserves of fossil fuels are realised, we will easily pass the aspirant 1.5 degrees centigrade rise in temperature agreed in Paris; in fact we will hit the 2 degree rise in global temperatures that the IPCC have said will be catastrophic for the planet. To put things into perspective, currently global temperatures have risen to 1 degree centigrade (compared to 1880). According to NASA, the last five years are, collectively, the hottest on record.

Attitudes are changing. The World Bank announced in 2017 that it will phase out finance for oil and gas extraction. Mark Carney, when he leaves the BoE at the end of January, will take up a new role as UN envoy for Climate and Finance. He has already penned articles warning that divesting in fossil fuels by large institutions is happening too slowly and has warned that up to $20 trillion of “stranded assets” could be wiped out by climate change. There is growing acceptance that an economic transition is already underway, and we ignore it at our peril.

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Lord William Wallace

A party of ideas

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 30th January 2020 - 1:00 pm

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The Liberal Democrats, a recent LibDem Voice posting declared, ‘are the party of ideas.’

Except that we’re not very good at spelling them out, or at getting them across in the political debate, at present.  And that leaves us at a major disadvantage in national politics, since few voters and not enough journalists know what we stand for.  ‘Stop Brexit’ has now run out of steam.  Polls show us as credited with a positive approach to climate change, but little more.

When I joined the Liberal Party as a student, 60 years ago, a popular but cruel description was that we were an intellectual think tank, generating ideas that other parties then took over.  It had been true of Beveridge, Keynes, even Lloyd George.

Tudor Jones’s new and excellent intellectual history, The uneven path of British Liberalism, underlines our huge debt to Jo Grimond and those around him, in setting out domestic and international agendas that gave the party a new credibility after a long and incoherent decline.  His articulation of our internationalist approach, and its foundation in cooperation with our neighbours instead of nostalgia for empire and global status, still stands against the ‘global Britain’ illusions of Brexiters.  His domestic priorities – local democracy, mutuals and cooperatives as providers of public services, local enterprise and active citizenship – are less well remembered.

We have a great many new members who buzz with ideas about policy, from harnessing technology to rebuilding public trust in democracy.  But we lack the resources at the centre to bring them together.  In the gentle and amateurish politics of the 1960s party leaders had time to sit down with intellectuals and discuss ideas.  (Grimond was wonderful at that, with students as much as professors and expert journalists.)  In the 24-hour news round today our small band of MPs are fighting for coverage on passing issues, with limited time to step back and reflect.  And our small policy staff necessarily focus on parliamentary priorities, and on the slow collective processes of policy development managed by the Federal Policy Committee.

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Jane Dodds

Where we go from here

By Jane Dodds | Thu 30th January 2020 - 11:01 am

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On Tuesday I visited the European Parliament building for the first time.

I was awed by the beautiful modern glass buildings in the Place de Luxembourg, which merge together to form an impressive (and somewhat confusing) web of corridors and doorways.

The Parliament is the epicentre of the European Union and is where over 7,500 staff and 751 MEPs work. Sadly, from Friday, this will be reduced as our UK contingent leave Brussels – just 8 months into what should’ve been a 5-year term.

But my visit to the Parliament wasn’t just to marvel at the impressive architecture. I came to meet with our MEPs, and to represent Wales at an event entitled “Brexit: What next for the Nation States”. I was joined by the indominable Sheila Ritchie MEP, representing Scotland, and newly elected Alliance MP Stephen Farry, representing Northern Ireland.

I spoke of how there are so many people who feel behind in Wales, with little sense of being connected with the centres of power that made decisions.

Even though Wales received £680million per year from the EU, making it a nation that benefitted far more than it contributed, there is a huge disconnected between areas of high poverty and the actual financial advantages membership of the EU brought for their communities.

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Suzanne Fletcher

Bells are set to toll in the UK on Friday but a silent flame can send a gentler message

By Suzanne Fletcher | Wed 29th January 2020 - 3:40 pm


Candle flame by Shan Sheehan
This is a message for all, including those who voted for Brexit.

I live in the hope that all can agree with the following sentiments.

We have greatly different views on how they can be achieved, but can we all join in, in lighting a candle ( a safe one!) on the evening of January 31st?

Bobby McDonagh is a former Irish ambassador to London, Rome and Brussels. In an article in Monday’s Irish Times, he suggests lighting a candle in homes, churches – anywhere.

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Mark Pack

Our party president and co-leader on the big challenges ahead

By Mark Pack | Wed 29th January 2020 - 12:40 pm

There are two versions of 2019 which future historians of the Liberal Democrats may write about. One is about a party that was on the road to recovery since 2015, took a big hit in December, but then continued upwards afterwards. It’s a story in which the successes of the first half of 2019 were the ones that pointed to the future. Or there is the version in which the Liberal Democrats were in continued decline after 2010, showed brief signs of life in early 2019 but where it was the disappointments of the general election that pointed to the future.

Either could yet turn out to be the one that’s written. Which one gets written is down to us here in the present.

That means getting our own house in order. It means learning the right lessons from last year – and acting on them, successfully electing a new leader and also making a success of the May elections.

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David Warren

Conference!

By David Warren | Wed 29th January 2020 - 11:10 am

Over a period of more than 30 years I have attended a lot of conferences including those of the Anti Apartheid Movement, Communication Workers Union, Trade Union Congress, Labour Party and most recently the Liberal Democrats. In my time as a CWU activist I sat for a term on its conference arrangements committee. My first Lib Dem conference was in 2012 and I really enjoyed the experience. I was particularly struck by the democratic nature of it. One delegate, one vote, no executive trying to sway us and no top table packed with party big wigs.

However, as we approach another …

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Paul Reynolds

Huawei and 5G: the tip of the iceberg for Johnson

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 29th January 2020 - 9:40 am

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What is the ‘Huawei and 5G’ mobile internet controversy really all about and why is it important for the UK ? Here’s a fly past the detail.

The British position has been clear since April 2019, up until now. The National Security Council (NSC) was advised by UK security institutions that there were no security issues with the proposed roll out of 5G mobile internet, using Huawei equipment. This was advice that followed pre-contract negotiations with different UK institutions. A formal decision was expected in May 2019, but has been delayed. Germany has taken a similar line to the UK. The UK’s largest mobile phone company, Vodafone, backs the UK position, despite Vodafone-related disinformation appearing in the pro-Brexit press.

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Bernard Aris

“God only knows what the next government will tell us” – EU citizens in UK watch Brexit happen with very mixed feelings

By Bernard Aris | Tue 28th January 2020 - 1:10 pm

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As a continental European citizen, I’m interested in how the EU citizens living in the UK are experiencing the Brexit process, and their treatment by the British authorities and their British fellow UK inhabitants.

If you live in a EU country where a referendum, in which you’re not allowed to vote, decides it will leave the EU and all the certainties that went with it, that is a fundamental transformation of your position in that country and that society; especially if the sitting government is not always as careful, let alone reassuring, about your position in their country.

Well, I’m not at all reassured that the British government has grasped how sensitive they have to be towards those EU citizens in such a transformative policy move.

Let me point to an Opinium Poll of British EU citizens last December, right after the barnstorming “Get Brexit Done” election campaign. It found that 75% of EU citizens polled thought that UK politicians didn’t care about their views; and 67% thought that they didn’t even listen. 57% said that under May and Boris, the UK government had grown “more hostile” towards EU citizens since the referendum.

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Robert Harrison

Huawei and 5G – a Liberal Democrat approach

By Robert Harrison | Tue 28th January 2020 - 9:50 am

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Starting with the Sunday Times, several media sources have reported that the Cabinet was facing a massive split on whether to allow the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei to supply major parts of the UK’s new 5G network. The company has been prohibited from supplying critical components into the US and Australian networks and Donald Trump has reportedly urged Boris Johnson to ban Huawei in the UK. How the UK should deal with Chinese high-tech companies is not just restricted to this issue alone – and whatever decision the British cabinet takes on Tuesday is unlikely to be the final word – it goes also to the heart of the future trading relationship with China and the UK, as well as with the US.

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Jonathan Fryer

We need a new international narrative

By Jonathan Fryer | Tue 28th January 2020 - 8:11 am

For the last four years the Liberal Democrats have been intensely focused on stopping Brexit, but we cannot ignore the fact that we failed to win that argument and Brexit is going to happen next Friday. Many of us hope that at some stage in the future Britain will rejoin the European Union. However, we need to adjust to the new reality. There is a strong case for crafting a clear political narrative that addresses major domestic problems such as the strain on public services (including the NHS), homelessness and the growing gap between rich and poor. But it would …

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Darren Martin

The Reverse Swiss Opportunity for the Pro-European Campaign

By Darren Martin | Mon 27th January 2020 - 5:04 pm

In 1992 the Swiss rejected EEA membership by 50.3% to 49.7% in a referendum. It was a vote that highlighted deeper cultural divisions in the country.

It’s quite difficult not to look at the result and draw parallels with our own 2016 referendum, and the subsequent 28 years in Switzerland could hold the answer to the ‘what next?’ question for the Liberal Democrats’ future position on Europe.

Following the 1992 referendum the Swiss suspended their application to join the EEA and in 1997 withdrew it altogether. However, through a series of bilateral agreements Switzerland is essentially a member of the Single Market …

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Web Magpie

Nick Tyrone: “What the Lib Dems keep failing to understand about the Labour Party” ****WARNING: CONTAINS ORANGE BOOK MENTION****

By Web Magpie | Mon 27th January 2020 - 2:49 pm

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On his website, writer Nick Tyrone has written a typically astute and pithy article which cuts to the heart of the relationship of the Liberal Democrats to the Labour party:

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Katharine Pindar

A vision for us based on fairness: towards a new Social Contract

By Katharine Pindar | Mon 27th January 2020 - 10:24 am

Liberal Democrats stand for fairness. “We exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society”, as the Preamble to our Constitution begins, and fairness is our continuing thought.

For there is little fairness apparent in our unequal society, with 14 million people in poverty, including close to 40% of our children predicted to be living in poverty by next year, as reported by UN Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty Philip Alston last May. Where are these people? They are in every nation and region, in cities, towns and rural areas, wherever there are food banks, wherever there are people with …

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Bernard Aris

Don’t carelessly jettison the European inheritance of the BBC in trying to modernise it (Part 2)

By Bernard Aris | Fri 24th January 2020 - 1:30 pm

Part 1 can be read here.

The clinching factor for all continental Europeans from 1939 was the role of the BBC World Service during the Second World War; and the fact that the BBC World Service on medium wave could be received on car radios, and on transistors on European beaches and gardens in many of the present EU member states. The stupidest budget cut of the Coalition Government in 2011 was, in my eyes, cutting this medium wave availability, restricting the BBC World Service to local DAB+ stations, and to BBC4 at 4.00 o’clock in the morning.

Don’t underestimate the prestige and love that the impartial, objective reporting of news by the BBC (from disasters like Dunkirk to victories like El Alamein) acquired in occupied Europe, where all peoples suddenly lost freedom of speech and got 1984-like manipulated news. The BBC in 1939-’45 also hosted national exiled broadcasters in their own time slots, like Radio Orange for the Dutch. In so doing the BBC even helped establish an obstreperous French officer (marginalised in his army top brass; a political nobody) with a battlefield commission as a lowest tier general, as a pivotal figure in all French politics from 1944 until his death in 1969. The BBC thus helped form EU postwar history; ITV or Sky can’t possibly claim that.

The BBC programming and drama meantime had a huge influence on the continent; smaller national broadcasters such as those in the Benelux countries readily bought BBC programs and directly rebroadcast them or reworked them. I learned my first English from the BBC “Walter and Conny” language course around 1967. The socialist broadcaster VARA put out the Onedin Line; and the daily NTS/NOS radio and TV news readily quoted and quotes the BBC on British and international events.

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The Lib Dems must abandon their support for HS2 for the sake of our economy and environment

By Andy Boddington | Fri 24th January 2020 - 12:00 pm

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Today’s report from the National Audit Office contains no surprises. But it is still devastating for High Speed 2. The complexity of the project was underestimated. Costs are ballooning. Value for money is deflating. The political uncertainty surrounding the project, especially the northern sections, will load in more costs. It is “impossible to estimate with certainty” how much HS2 will eventually cost, the auditors conclude. But it will be north of £100bn. That dwarfs into insignificance the cost of a third runway at Heathrow.

The drain on public finances is not the main problem. HS2 is environmentally destructive. Far from being green, it will destroy centuries old biodiverse landscapes. It will take a century for the scheme to pay back the carbon and environmental costs of construction.

HS2 is a London-centric vanity project. The Lib Dem leadership should withdraw support for HS2 and declare it dead in a ditch.

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